5 JULY 1873, Page 24

The Letters of Cicero to Atticus. Book I. Edited by

Alfred Pretor. (Deighton and Boll, and Bell and Daldy.)—The notes which Mr. Pretor has furnished leave little or nothing to bo desired. Even practised. scholars are brought up pretty frequently in reading Cicero's Epistles, by difficulties of allusion, if not by difficulties of construction. Mr. Pretor's notes are never missing when they are wanted ; they have been put together with the greatest care, and they are distinguished by sound sense and judgment. A most useful part of his labours is to be found in the long passages which he has translated. The style of his English renderings is commonly excellent, and the passages cannot but bo of the greatest utility for the purpose for which they are primarily intended, the "teaching Latin prose by the only sure method, that of retranslation." As to Cicero's character, of which Mr. Pretor takes 4-1, very unfavourable view, -we should be glad, did time and space permit; to break a lance with the editor.